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Holding and Letting Go: The Social Practice of Personal Identities
The social practice of forming, shaping, expressing, contesting, and maintaining personal identities makes human interaction, and therefore society, possible. Our identities give us our sense of how we are supposed to act and how we may or must treat others, so how we hold each other in our identities is of crucial moral importance. To hold someone in her identity is to treat her according to the stories one uses to make sense of who she is. Done well, holding allows individuals to flourish personally and in their interactions with others; done poorly, it diminishes their self-respect and restricts their participation in social life. If the identity is to represent accurately the person who bears it, the tissue of stories that constitute it must continue to change as the person grows and changes. Here, good holding is a matter of retaining the stories that still depict the person but letting go of the ones that no longer do. The book begins with a puzzling instance of personhood,
where the work of holding someone in her identity is tragically one-sided. It then traces this work of holding and letting go over the human life span, paying special attention to its implications for bioethics. A pregnant woman starts to call her fetus into personhood. Children develop their moral agency as they learn to hold themselves and others in their identities. Ordinary adults hold and let go, sometimes well and sometimes badly. People bearing damaged or liminal identities leave others uncertain how to hold and what to let go. Identities are called into question at the end of life, and persist after the person has died. In all, the book offers a glimpse into a fascinating moral terrain that is ripe for philosophical exploration.
where the work of holding someone in her identity is tragically one-sided. It then traces this work of holding and letting go over the human life span, paying special attention to its implications for bioethics. A pregnant woman starts to call her fetus into personhood. Children develop their moral agency as they learn to hold themselves and others in their identities. Ordinary adults hold and let go, sometimes well and sometimes badly. People bearing damaged or liminal identities leave others uncertain how to hold and what to let go. Identities are called into question at the end of life, and persist after the person has died. In all, the book offers a glimpse into a fascinating moral terrain that is ripe for philosophical exploration.
- GenresPhilosophy
242 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 8, 2023
Even though I don't completely agree with Lindemann, this is a fascinating read.
Prior conceptions of personhood largely see it as a status conferred upon beings with certain capacities or qualities. In that sense, it's a passive status — once you gain said capacities or qualities, you gain entry into the exclusive personhood group.
Lindemann sees personhood as the product of a social practice — she sees personhood as "initiated and maintained" by other persons. In this sense, of course personhood requires certain capacities and qualities, but it becomes an active practice, the product of engagement between persons.
This, of course, has radical consequences for the things which qualify as persons, and I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I don't think Lindemann engages with them as rigorously as she could have. And what she does engage in is wild. Her argument for not granting fetuses personhood is by virtue of their being unable to be seen and see other persons — I, myself, am not a champion for fetal rights, but this argument could easily apply to neonates and toddlers under certain unique conditions.
Along this same point, her reasoning for excluding pets and other cherished animals from personhood, when she gives the status to infants, is laughable. She uses a quote from Wittgenstein ("If a lion could talk, we could not understand it" or something), and uses it to argue that the conscious experience an animal has, what it feels like to be embodied like an animal, is inconceivable for humans, and therefore we cannot bring them into personhood. Ignoring animals, the reason I despise this argument so much is because it completely disallows us from bringing any form of alien intelligence into personhood as well, since we of course cannot conceive of what it is like to be an alien if we cannot conceive of what it is like to be a cow or great ape, and one of the benefits of personhood as a status is that it provides ground for us to respect the conscious experience of beings outside our species.
As a minor point, Wittgenstein, on the same page in Philosophical Investigations, wrote "It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them." This brings up interesting questions about cross-cultural personhood-granting — of whether our inability to communicate with non-English speakers would mean the personhood-creating process is disrupted.
Furthermore, traditional views of personhood recognize its importance as a status symbol, as something which gives beings a weight of meaning that no simple organism possesses, and therefore grants them certain rights, privileges, and protections. When Lindemann uses the term, I think she sees it as a proxy for humanness, or importance as a human being in a society, or something of that sort, but less as a proxy for a legal right. When you come from having a tradition of viewing personhood as intimately tied to such legal rights, it's jarring to read about it as Lindemann writes about it — as something that is dependent on more than just your innate capacities.
With all those criticisms aside, her conception of personal identity (which I think she uses somewhat interchangeably with personhood, confusing quite a lot of things) is spot on. Her account of people having multiple different, sometimes conflicting, identities which manifest in the roles that they act out, and how other persons can affirm or deny their acting as said role, is really brilliant. This way of connecting personal identity to collective myths (what Lindemann calls "master narratives") is very clever, and makes a lot of her arguments very accessible for someone not particularly well versed in theories of relational personhood.
Prior conceptions of personhood largely see it as a status conferred upon beings with certain capacities or qualities. In that sense, it's a passive status — once you gain said capacities or qualities, you gain entry into the exclusive personhood group.
Lindemann sees personhood as the product of a social practice — she sees personhood as "initiated and maintained" by other persons. In this sense, of course personhood requires certain capacities and qualities, but it becomes an active practice, the product of engagement between persons.
This, of course, has radical consequences for the things which qualify as persons, and I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I don't think Lindemann engages with them as rigorously as she could have. And what she does engage in is wild. Her argument for not granting fetuses personhood is by virtue of their being unable to be seen and see other persons — I, myself, am not a champion for fetal rights, but this argument could easily apply to neonates and toddlers under certain unique conditions.
Along this same point, her reasoning for excluding pets and other cherished animals from personhood, when she gives the status to infants, is laughable. She uses a quote from Wittgenstein ("If a lion could talk, we could not understand it" or something), and uses it to argue that the conscious experience an animal has, what it feels like to be embodied like an animal, is inconceivable for humans, and therefore we cannot bring them into personhood. Ignoring animals, the reason I despise this argument so much is because it completely disallows us from bringing any form of alien intelligence into personhood as well, since we of course cannot conceive of what it is like to be an alien if we cannot conceive of what it is like to be a cow or great ape, and one of the benefits of personhood as a status is that it provides ground for us to respect the conscious experience of beings outside our species.
As a minor point, Wittgenstein, on the same page in Philosophical Investigations, wrote "It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them." This brings up interesting questions about cross-cultural personhood-granting — of whether our inability to communicate with non-English speakers would mean the personhood-creating process is disrupted.
Furthermore, traditional views of personhood recognize its importance as a status symbol, as something which gives beings a weight of meaning that no simple organism possesses, and therefore grants them certain rights, privileges, and protections. When Lindemann uses the term, I think she sees it as a proxy for humanness, or importance as a human being in a society, or something of that sort, but less as a proxy for a legal right. When you come from having a tradition of viewing personhood as intimately tied to such legal rights, it's jarring to read about it as Lindemann writes about it — as something that is dependent on more than just your innate capacities.
With all those criticisms aside, her conception of personal identity (which I think she uses somewhat interchangeably with personhood, confusing quite a lot of things) is spot on. Her account of people having multiple different, sometimes conflicting, identities which manifest in the roles that they act out, and how other persons can affirm or deny their acting as said role, is really brilliant. This way of connecting personal identity to collective myths (what Lindemann calls "master narratives") is very clever, and makes a lot of her arguments very accessible for someone not particularly well versed in theories of relational personhood.
January 16, 2025
Well-written and thought-provoking book, but it falls short in its treatment of transgender identities. The suggestion that transgender people hold an "impossible identity" is deeply problematic, as it frames their existence as inherently deceptive, relying on society's prejudices rather than challenging them. Lindemann's fourth criterion for holding identities—requiring a reaction from others—does not account for the harm caused by reducing marginalized people’s identities to the biases of those around them. If this criterion were applied universally, it would also diminish the humanity of other groups, as evidenced by her chapter on abortion, which risks portraying women as second-class citizens. While Lindemann shows significant compassion for white women and their struggles, the same understanding is notably absent for transgender individuals and other marginalized groups. This lack of intersectionality undermines the otherwise insightful nature of the book.
December 10, 2024
DISCLAIMER: Only read chapters 1 and 3 for class.
Lindemann has something useful to say here in this book about holding and letting go of identities even if her prose is not the most creative. Her first chapter is about personhood, and I think it is weakly written. Chapter 3, however, is a must-read.
Lindemann has something useful to say here in this book about holding and letting go of identities even if her prose is not the most creative. Her first chapter is about personhood, and I think it is weakly written. Chapter 3, however, is a must-read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews